Part 5 (1/2)
Presently he said: ”To the dead, who cannot suffer, we can be kind and s.h.i.+eld them even from themselves. Is there no way to help the living? A few hundred dollars, two short years ago, would have saved all this, and there was no way for her to get it. She knew it _all_ then, and there was no help!”
”Why did she not, in such a case as that, push back her pride and go to some one? There must be thousands who would have gladly responded to such a call as that,” I argued.
He buried his face in his hands for a moment and shuddered. At last he said: ”She did--she went to three good men, men who had known, been friendly with, admired her and her husband. Two of them are worth their millions, the other one is rich. She only asked to borrow, and promised to repay it herself if she had to live and work after he were dead to do it!”
He paused.
”You do not mean to tell me that they refused--and they old friends and rich?” I asked, amazed.
”I mean to say just this: they one and all made some excuse; they did not let her have it.”
”She told them what the doctors said, and of her fears?”
”She did,” he answered, sadly.
”And yet you say they are good men!” I exclaimed, indignantly.
”Good, benevolent, charitable, every one of them,” he answered.
”Were you one of them, Barker?” I asked, after a moment's pause.
”Thank G.o.d, no!” he replied. ”But perhaps in some other case I have done the same, if I only knew the whole story. Those men do not know this last, you must remember.”
”And the worst of it is, we dare not tell them,” said I, as we parted.
”No, we dare not,” he replied, and left me standing with the copy of the burial certificate in my hand.
”Natural causes?” I said to myself, looking at it. ”Died of natural causes--the brutality and selfishness of man--and poverty with love.
_Natural_ causes! Yes.” And I closed my office door and turned out the light.
UNDER PROTEST.
_”This is my story, sir; a trifle, indeed, I a.s.sure you._
_”Much more, perchance, might be said; but I hold him, of all men, most lightly Who swerves from the truth in his tale.”_
Bret Harte.
When the new family moved into, and we were told had bought, the cottage nearest our own, we were naturally interested in finding out what kind of people they were, and whether we had gained or lost by the change of neighbors.
In a summer place like this it makes a good deal of difference just what kind of people live so near to you that when you are sitting on your veranda and they are swinging in hammocks on theirs, the most of the conversation is common property, unless you whisper, and one does not want to spend three or four months of each year mentally and verbally tiptoeing about one's own premises. Then, on the other hand, there are few less agreeable situations to be placed in than to be forced to listen to confidences or quarrels with which you have nothing whatever to do, or else be deprived of the comforts and pleasures of out-door life, to secure which you endure so many other annoyances.
Our new neighbors were, therefore, as you will admit, of the utmost interest and importance to us, and I was naturally very much pleased, at the end of the first week, when I returned one day from a fis.h.i.+ng party, from which my wife's headache had detained her, by the report she gave me of their att.i.tude toward each other. (From her glowing estimate, I drew rose-colored pictures of their probable kindliness and generosity toward others.) Up to this time they had been but seldom outside of their house, and we had not gathered much information of their doings, except the fact that a good deal of nice furniture had come, and they appeared to be greatly taken up in beautifying and arranging their cottage. This much promised well, so far as it went; but we had not lived to our time of life not to find out, long ago, that the most exquisitely appointed houses sometimes lack the one essential feature; that is, ladies and gentlemen to occupy them.
”They are lovely!” said my wife, the moment I entered the door, before I had been able to deposit my fis.h.i.+ng-tackle and ask after her headache.
”They are lovely; at least he is,” she amended. ”I am sure we shall be pleased with them; or, at least, with him. A man as careful of, and attentive to, his wife as he is can't help being an agreeable neighbor.”
”Good!” said I. ”How did you find out? And how is your headache?--Had a disgusting time fis.h.i.+ng. Glad you did not go. Sun was hot; breeze was hot; boatman's temper was a hundred and twenty in the shade; bait wouldn't stay on the hooks, and there weren't any fish any way. But how did you say your head is?”